Particle beams in ultrastrong laser fields: Direct laser acceleration and radiation reaction effects

Several aspects of the interaction of particle beams with ultrastrong laser fields are discussed. Firstly, we consider regimes when radiation reaction is not essential and it is demonstrated that employing chirped laser pulses, significant improvement of the direct acceleration of particles can be achieved. Results from single- and many-particle calculations of the particle acceleration, in vacuum, by plane-wave fields, as well as in tightly-focused laser beams, show that the mean energies and their spreads qualify them for important applications. Secondly, we investigate the effect of radiation reaction in electron-laser-beam interactions. Signatures of the quantum radiation reaction during the interaction of an electron bunch with a focused superstrong ultrashort laser pulse can be observed in a characteristic behavior of the spectral bandwidth, and the angular spread of the nonlinear Compton radiation on the laser pulse duration. Furthermore, it is shown that the radiation reaction effects can be employed to control the electron dynamics via the nonlinear interplay between the Lorentz and radiation reaction forces. In particular, it is shown that an ultrarelativistic electron bunch colliding head- on with a strong bichromatic laser pulse can be deflected in a controllable way, by changing either the relative phase or the relative amplitude between the two frequency components of the bichromatic field.